Princess Tutu: the rewatch, Disc 1: Hope, Adventure, Mystery, Author's Prerogative

[timepiececlock]

Am I staying up all night to watch PT and knit? Yes. And yes, I knit now! I started tonight. I'm making a purple scarf. It's great. I can't purle though, the book's explanation just confuses me.


Disc 1

I had forgotten the actual degree of abrupt little asshole Fakir was in the first episodes. I mean, really. He's quite the nasty bitch.

I'm "eh" about Mytho's dub VA; he's alright for the soft-spoken stuff, a little jarring for the louder stuff. Ahiru/Duck's dub VA is quite talented; some of those lines must be murder on your throat. Rue's English voice is lovely and Fakir's is positively splendid. I still wish they had used his actor for Sasuke in the Naruto dub.

I'd forgotten how often, in these first episodes, they repeat the line that the princess is fated never to be with the one she loves. Ahiru says it about five or six times, Drosselmeyer says it twice that often, and even Rue repeats it once. I know how that dialogue reads in the beginning of the show, but having seen the end and knowing how the cards fall... that prediction takes on new tragic meaning, as does Drosselmeyer's fanatic insistence that the audience "never forget that Ahiru, as her true self, is a duck." It's something the audience and Ahiru forget over the course of the series... we start to see her as a girl who turns into a duck, not a duck that turns into a girl. That change in perception (or misperception) correlates with the fact that as the series progresses, Ahiru begins to operate as if it were that way, particularly in her relationships with the other characters. It reminds me so much of The Last Unicorn, as Ahiru is forever changed by being human, and what her true identity is begins to blur as she becomes more than what she was. The transformative aspect of this series is beautiful. The first half of the series we discover who these characters are as pieces of them are revealed... the second half of the series takes those newly-revealed characters and this time transforms them.

Comments

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

I can't wait till I get my DVDs - Amazon sent me the email yesterday that they're finally shipping it!

If you need help visualizing stitches and stuff, check out knittinghelp.com - they have VIDEOS! I heart them.

[rasielle.livejournal.com]

*radiaaaaates envy* quality PT dub, wooow...

I'd forgotten all about that as well; you're right when you point out that, along with Ahiru, the audience was totally hookwinked. She might not have become the duck Drosselmeyer had intended her to be, but she was a duck nonetheless. Now that you bring up the phrase, I'm also beginning to wonder if there was an emphasis on their roles as characters through repetition since that of Princess Tutu's "destiny" isn't the only case. There was the repetition of Fakir's total inability to protect Mytho and his uselessness as a knight, and as for Mytho himself, the fate of the forever heartless prince. It was Drosselmeyer constantly reminding them of their story roles, as if we could've guessed beforehand that the characters themselves would forget. I can't seem to recall any repeated lines for Rue, though.

*runs off to rewatch PT, whoo*

*uploads and uses THIS icon because I am worse than any tin man!*

[rasielle.livejournal.com]

RASHAKA!!!!!!111

I finished reading The Last Unicorn today and--!!

It must be crossed over with Princess Tutu. O_O It must. It's strange; as I read it (especially as I got closer and closer to the very end) I found myself thinking of Princess Tutu over and over again, and comparing them and noticing they shared patterns and just... akldjfkdjf <3

Gosh, the unicorn was such a tragedy. Such a beautiful, beautiful tragedy - not unlike Ahiru herself. The natural order of things, indeed. ;_;